


Impossible

by Hekate1308



Series: Tales of the Thursdays [8]
Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, The Thursdays adopt Morse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 04:04:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19265542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hekate1308/pseuds/Hekate1308
Summary: Joan had always wanted a big brother.





	Impossible

**Author's Note:**

> I really tried to give this a "younger" voice. Enjoy!

Joan had always wanted a big brother. Oh, Sam was nice and she loved him, but Sam was too small to do a lot of things, and a big brother would have made stuff easier. A big brother could have accompanied her to the park when Mum didn’t have time, and he could have helped her to stay in the lines when she coloured, and he could have played games with her Sam couldn’t understand yet.

Sally from down the street said she shouldn’t want a big brother because hers was mean, but of course she wouldn’t get a _mean_ one. Joan would have a _nice_ big brother.

She had asked Mum, but she’d told her with a smile that it was impossible for her to get a big brother.

_Impossible._

She hated that word. Grown-ups used it around her all the time.

Joan thought impossible things were boring. Why even have things you _couldn’t_ do?

Today though, Mum had had the time to take them to the park, and her and Sam had been playing when she had turned around for just one second and he’d run off. He liked to do that; but as always, she got scared. “Mum! Sam’s gone!”

Mum was with her in an instant, taking her hand and starting to look for Sam.

And there he was, leading an older boy to them. Joan expected Sam to be told off for running away and for talking to a stranger – they weren’t supposed to do that – but Mum just hugged him and then started talking to the other boy. Morse, he said he was called.

Joan thought Morse was an odd name. She’d never heard it before. She didn’t know if she liked him or not, but then Mum told him that he could play with them if he wanted, and he said yes, so she decided that he must be nice.

And it was more fun to play with someone else apart from Sam too. There. Now she had proven it – a big brother was a good idea!

Mum told Morse that he could come the next day and play with them again without asking her or Sa if they were alright with it, but this was one of those times when Mum just seemed to know the right thing to say, so she didn’t complain.

At dinner, she told Dad all about their new friend. He was interested, if a bit tired.

* * *

 

They saw Morse regularly after that, and sometimes, when they were playing, Joan wondered why Mum considered it impossible for her to get a big brother; having Morse as a friend was very much like having one.

Sally said that wasn’t true, but Sally was _stupid_ sometimes, so Joan didn’t listen.

When it became cold, she was worried that they wouldn’t see Morse again until they returned to the park, but Mum gave him their address. She waited for him every day for a whole week before he came over. Maybe he’d thought Mum hadn’t meant it?

Morse could be rather silly sometimes, but that was okay. Joan knew that she herself was silly now and then, too. Not often, but still.

* * *

 

“it’s not like having a big brother” Sally insisted yet again. “He’s not _staying_ with you.”

“He’s there all the time” she pointed out. “He’s home more often than my dad!”

Joan knew that Dad had a very important job, but she really wished he would be around more.

“Well it’s still not the same” Sally replied stubbornly.

“You are just annoyed because Morse is nice to me and your brother isn’t to you.” And right now, Joan could understand him rather well, too.

* * *

 

When Joan started school – she’d been excited about it because Morse liked it, even though she couldn’t go to the same as Morse because grownups had stupid rules about girl schools and boy schools – Morse began to help her with her homework, although he often told her she was smart enough to do it on her own. She liked it when he helped her, though. He could explain stuff better than their teacher.

Morse’s homework looked really complicated, but he always said that she’d understand eventually. She really hoped she would, soon. She wanted to help him too.

When she told him that though, he looked thoughtful and then quietly said, “You are already helping me.”

Joan didn’t quite understand what he meant by that, but then decided it was just one of the weird things Morse said sometimes.

* * *

 

Joan was scared. She normally never felt scared when she was with Mum and Dad and Morse, but something was wrong with Morse. He was breathing funny and he had to stop to cough _all the time_ while they were playing.

Sam had noticed too. She could tell that he would soon start to cry, and if she hadn’t been a big girl, who went to school and could read by herself these days, she might have, as well. There was a lump in her throat. She looked at Mum and Dad. Mum and Dad usually knew what to do.

They were doing the thing where they looked at one another and decided stuff, she realized. Good. Mum and Dad would fix Morse. They had fixed her, too, and Sam, when they had been ill.

Because Morse was ill, much more ill than they had ever been.

That’s what scared her. She’d heard stories, of children who got very ill, and then they were not there anymore.

It didn’t matter that Morse wasn’t her big brother. She loved him like she was, and she didn’t want him to go away.

* * *

 

By the time they arrived at the grey ugly house, Morse didn’t answer her anymore when she talked to him, and she huddled close to Mum, more scared than ever.

Joan didn’t like the man and the woman who Dad went to talk to. She understood that they had to be Morse’s dad and his stepmum, and Morse never said anything mean about them, but she thought they couldn’t be nice, because Morse wasn’t happy at his home. If his parents were nice, he would’ve been happy, like he was when he was in their house.

Mum took them outside, and she wanted to ask, but didn’t dare to. What if Morse had already gone away?

But then Dad came out, carrying Morse, and they got into a cab to go home. Normally she loved driving in a cab, but Morse wouldn’t wake up, and she was worried.

When they put him in Sam’s room though, she relaxed. Now came the part where Mum made him all better. Now he would wake up soon.

* * *

 

Morse needed a few days to wake up, which Joan decided meant that he must have been very ill, and that his dad and stepmum hadn’t taken care of him like Mum and Dad did of them.

She didn’t like Morse’s dad and stepmum. She would have told Mum and Dad that, but she didn’t want to distract them from making Morse better.

Morse was still very sleepy in the beginning, but eventually, Mum let her and Sam into the room to play with him and talk to him. He wasn’t hot anymore; Joan made sure of that every morning by pressing her hand against his forehead, like she had seen Mum do.

* * *

 

Morse stayed with them. Joan didn’t quite understand why he couldn’t have come to live with them much sooner, but maybe the grownups had made everything _complicated_ again. They were good at that.

Surely, now though, Mum and Dad could see that Morse would be a good big brother? Even a _great_ one? Now they had to make sure he stayed and didn’t get ill anymore and grew some more because he was rather small if you asked Joan, she’d seen much bigger boys.

Anyway, someone had to look after Morse, and Mum and Dad and Joan were just the right people for the job. Sometimes, Morse got sad when he thought for too long, and then she took Sam and they played with him, and then he smiled again, and she knew all was well.

Morse just had to stay with them so he would smile all the time.

* * *

 

There was something different about today. Mum had let them go to the park with Morse, but she’d looked nervous, and when Mum looked nervous, it was a bad sign.

When they returned home, they found Morse’s dad there, and Joan wanted to scream. Mum and Dad couldn’t allow him to take Morse away again. He was her big brother now.

Thankfully, he left without Morse, and then Mum and Dad explained that Morse was going to stay for good.

She smiled from ear to ear. Now everything was as it should be.

**Several years later**

“Dev, could you check my English homework for spelling mistakes real quick? Miss Tuppence is being a real –“

“Joanie, you wouldn’t even think that word if Mum or Dad were in the room.”

She stuck out her tongue at Dev.

“A very compelling argument” he observed, but grinned. “Let me see.”

When Dev had first begun his studies, Joan had been afraid he would forget all about her and Sam, seeing as he even had a room in college; but of course that fear had been unfounded.

Well, she thought with a smile as she watched him carefully read through her essay, she had been right all those years ago.

She hadn’t just gotten a nice big brother, she’d gotten a great big brother.


End file.
